Responsibility
by Vahkhiin
Summary: Sometimes she forgets that he's actually capable of responsibility. (Sherlock/Joan)


**A/N: **I actually wrote this one a while ago and don't know why I haven't gotten around to posting it up. It's written in Joan's POV for a change :)... Enjoy.

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Sometimes she forgets that he's actually capable of responsibility.

These are one of those mornings when she forgets entirely. It's approximately 4:26am when she wakes to the thundering echo of Bach's D Minor Symphony rumbling through the walls of their brownstone. She momentarily thinks of the neighbours before that thought is soon smothered by the thought of something far much greater. Doesn't he know he can't blast music like that anymore?

In a flight of fury she throws the blankets off her. She doesn't care that they've fallen off the bottom edge of the bed even though she knows full and well that he will comment about that later. He deserves at least that, she thinks as she hurries to throw a robe around her.

She wonders briefly as she hastily makes her way to the door at how someone could go from being completely responsible to being completely ignorant to responsibility entirely. She doesn't waste another moment of thought when she realizes that she is thinking about Sherlock. The same man that has both the ability to irritate her to her core and yet on other days, love to that undying, unending kind of way.

She's seething by the time she steps into the hallway. She isn't able to ignore the rumble of the symphony she feels through her fingertips that are trailing along the hallway wall. She thinks to detour to the room in the far end but second thinks that when she decides to first give him a piece of her mind. She prepares everything she wants to say in a clear, concise way by the time she reaches the middle of the steps. She even goes so far as to decide on exactly how she's going to gesture how she feels to go with her words of disappointment in his lack of responsibility. She feels heat rising from her and she hopes that her eyes flash fire because this is going to be his first warning. This is going to be the one that'll hopefully make him realize that he can't be careless anymore. This is going to be the deciding factor for him to take a stand and be the man he promised her he would be.

She hurries down the rest of the steps and glimpses briefly at him. It's a little hard to make him out entirely from how dim the lights are. She turns to where the speakers and that player are and she quickly makes her way to it and turns it off with a rather triumphant flicker of her fingers. She braces herself and turns to face him.

"I thought we talked about-" but then she stops mid-sentence and doesn't say another word.

She doesn't know where the words went or how they so quickly dissipated from her thoughts. But the intrusion of silence in the brownstone suddenly weighs heavily on her and all she can do is look at him. There's a look of innocence etched into the very curvature of his face and he doesn't say anything and he doesn't move. He only looks at her in the way he only does when the night is quiet and when he is alone with her. He has that ability somehow, that skill of knowing exactly how to convey everything he is feeling in its entirety by simply looking at her.

There is only love that she sees in his eyes right there. She looks at those little arms tightly woven around his neck and that little head pressing into the place where she often likes to kiss. She looks at his arms securely holding that little body to him as if nothing in the world could ever make him let go. Then finally she looks at his hands, one carefully across the little back and the other holding a little stray hanging leg to his left.

She looks back at him after a moment passes and doesn't know how she could have doubted him. He takes a step toward her when she doesn't say anything and he stops just short of an arm length in front of her.

"Did the music wake you?" he asks softly.

"Yes," she replies, still uncertain of what else to say to him.

"I'm sorry about that," he tells her and stretches a hand to smooth her hair down. She presumes there were probably ends sticking up at weird angles from her sudden departure from the bed not too long ago.

"Sherlock," she starts but isn't able to say anything else.

"Collin," he says quietly and leans forward to press a kiss to her forehead, "was fussing about and didn't want to go back to sleep. So I thought that if his mind was anything like mine, some music would be in order…"

"At full volume?" she asks.

"It seems he is very much my son," he tells her as if he had deduced something vitally important, "He dozed further into the very depth of unconsciousness the louder I set the volume."

She looks at him for the longest time before she smiles and shakes her head in disbelief at him. She doesn't know what else to say and so she settles with leaning into him. She throws a hand around their little son and the other around his neck. She presses her lips into unoccupied side of his neck and curls her other hand around his waist. And she closes her eyes as he continues to stroke her hair with his free hand.

Responsibility. The word echoes in her mind as they sway together to nothing but silence and the soft exhales of their little son between them.

She supposes she should know by now that she shouldn't doubt him anymore. He has proven to her time and time again that though most of the time he looks to be incapable of responsibility, he always knows exactly when to be responsible.


End file.
